The life and work of St. Paul

THE EPISTLE TO "THE EPHE8IANS." 643
jrtMisure of grace given by Him who, ascending in triumph, with Sin and
Deatn bound to His chariot-wheels, " 1
gave gifts for men," having first
" "
descended that by ascending far above all heavens He fill might all things.
Apostles therefore, and Prophets, and Evangelists, and Pastors, and Teacher*
were all appointed by virtue of the gifts which He gave, with a view to perfect
the saints, and so to build up the Church which is tho body of Christ,
until we all finally attain 2 to the unity of the faith, and the full knowledge of
the Son of God, to perfect manhood, to the measure of the stature of t he
Plenitude of Christ." But to contribute to this perfect growth we must lay
aside moral and spiritual childishness j we must keep the hand firmly on tho
helm that we may not be tossed like dismantled hulks by every wave and
storm of doctrine, in that frandful sleight and craft which many devote to
further the deliberate system of error. To be true and to be loving is the
3
secret of Christian growth. Sincerity and charity are as tho life-blood in the
veins of that Church, of which Christ is the Head and Heart, " from whom
tho whole body being fitly framed and compacted by means of every joint of
tho vital supply, according to the proportional energy of each individual part,
tends to the increase of the body, so as to build itself up in love.'**
After this expansion of the duty of Unity, he returns to his exhortation ;
and, as before he had urged them to walk worthily of their vocation, he now urges
them not to walk, as did the rest of the Gentiles, in tho vanity of their mind,
having been darkened in their understanding, and utterly alienated from tho
life of God because of their ignorance and the callosity of their hearts, 6 seeing
that they, having lost all sense of shame or sorrow for sin, 9 abandoned themselves
to wantonness for tho working of all nncleanness, in inordinate desire : 7
"But NOT eo did ye learn Christ assuming that ye heard Him, and were taught
8 in Hun as the truth is in Jesua, that ye put off, as concerns your former conversation,
the old man which is over being corrupted according to the lusts of deceit, and
undergo renewal by the spirit of your mind, and put on tho new man which after
God was created in righteousness and holiness of truth." *
Then follow the many practical applications which result from this clothing
of the soul with the new-created humanity. Put away lying, because we are
1 On this singular reference to Ps. Ixviii., and the change of the Ao/3 &6^ara tv
ai/0pwiroi?, see Da vies, p. 44. It is at least doubtful whether there is the slightest allusion
to the descent into hell. The point is the identity of Him who came to earth (i.e., the
historic Jesus) and Him who ascended, i.e., of the Eternal and the Incarnate Christ.
' The omision of i* marks the certain result.
* iv. 15, iA>,eevoiT i iv dyaTTD r.ot merely " sjxaking the truth," but " being true."
* iv. 116.
*
jrfipos, "tufa-stone," is used, secondarily, for a hard tumour, or callus at the end of
injured boces.
6
amjAyTjxoTK.
"
Qui postquam peccaverint, non detent." "A siu committed a
kucond time does net seem a sin " (Moed Katon, f. 27, 2).
*
ir\eovef